head hazy with goodbye kisses
by fluorescent lights
Summary: "You taste different then what I imagined you would taste like." HaymitchMaysilee


Title: head hazy with goodbye kisses

Summary: "You taste different then what I imagined you would taste like." HaymitchMaysilee

Author's Note: I liked this in the beginning but then it got very meh, but I miss HaymitchMaysilee, so.

Also, if anyone wants to write me a GalePrim, I think I will just have to marry you.

Sorry the ending is blah. I just needed to get this out before I exploded.

/

He kisses her once. In between his various breakups with his girlfriend, he kisses her by the fence. She wonders if the heat pooling in her chest is from proximity or from something else entirely.

He pulls away, after making her head feel beyond dizzy, and tells her, "You taste different then what I imagined you would taste like."

Her eyes go wide with anticipation and hopes he can't hear her loud rabbit beat heart, "What did you think I'd taste like?"

He smiles – no, it's more of a smirk, lips curling at the edges, "Wealth."

She wishes she had something clever to stay, but instead, she just stands there and wonders how long it will take for him to get back to his girlfriend. He traces her lips with a sooty finger, over and over until she swears he will leave her with a mouth as black as coal.

"You taste nice," he says, finally.

She wants him to kiss her goodbye, more than anything in the entire world. She would give away all the Capitol dresses and the money and the mines, just so he will kiss her goodbye by the fence.

He leaves her there without a goodbye, and only two days later, she sees him kissing his pretty Seam girlfriend again.

/

She thinks about him thousands of times after that, but as each new day comes, the thoughts diminish. She sees them constantly, holding hands and kissing always: tongues darting into mouths and hands roaming.

She notices that he never kisses his girlfriend goodbye, and perhaps, that makes her feel somewhat better.

/

He stops coming to school all together, out of the blue. Whispers say it's because his family needs more money.

If he wasn't so proud, and she not so rash, she would've given him every penny her parents have saved.

/

On the day of the Reaping, she ends up looking for him throughout the crowd. His fingers are intertwined with his girlfriend's, and she can see that both hands are covered in soot.

When she is called on the stage, she looks for him again. She's honestly shocked at the lack of sadness she feels. She tries to find his face so she can see every emotion she doesn't feel, flicker past his face at the sight of her.

She finds that she doesn't have to look far. His name is called too, and she can't help but feel some twinge of satisfaction that his girlfriend won't be with him when he dies.

He takes her hand, shakes it, avoids her eyes. He doesn't look anywhere but at the floor, not when a girl he used to fool around with is Reaped, or one of the wealthy merchant boys he would often fight with. He does not look at his girlfriend's face, nor does he look at hers.

She doesn't cry when her family bids her goodbye. Instead, she revels in the sad fact that she will get to die with him.

She sees him swipe a tear from his cheek.

/

The whole train ride there, she wants him to say something – anything.

He doesn't say a thing, and she notices that champagne and wine bottles are often misplaced.

/

She tries to fall asleep in the Capitol, but it's so alive with noise that she finds herself staring at the ceiling, thinking of Capitol dresses and wads of money – things that rich girls like her should want.

She is thinking of him when he opens her door. He stands in her doorway for what seems like an eternity before mumbling, "I thought you'd taste like love or something."

She turns to look at him, and he knows she's awake – knows that his secret thoughts have been revealed, but he still leaves her. Her lips only touch air.

/

The night before the interviews, he comes to her doorway again. She's sitting in bed, brushing her pretty blond hair over and over until the bed sheets are littered with strands of hair. It's always been a nervous habit of hers, and he watches her at her weakest, his eyes trailing down. She's only wearing a silk tank top and underwear, and he comments on it like he's supposed to. His voice, instead of holding it's usual confidence, wavers at the end.

"Sit down," she says loudly, hoping the external noise will drown her internal screams.

He nods to himself, quiet for once in a very long time, and sits on the end of her bed. Her toes touch his thigh, and she feels her whole body heat up. He wiggles away from her touch.

He breaks the silence, "Do you want to get drunk with me?"

She nods and notices the bottle in his hand, filled with Capitol liquor. She smiles to herself and chugs the first drink he hands her. She decides then, when her sight is blurring at the edges, that liquor would be the temporary escape. They stay silent, drinking together, and she notes how much happier he looks when he's drinking.

After the third drink or so, she asks him, "Did you know you were my first kiss?"

He practically spits out his drink, "No, I thought you had kissed other boys."

"No," she says, while shaking her head, "You were the only one, and you'll definitely be the only one for the rest of time."

"Don't say that," he says quietly, "You could win. You could win and meet a Merchant boy and have babies and live a wealthy life."

"Oh, but you see, it's not going to end that way. It's going to end with me having your kiss still lingering on my lips, dead in the arena."

He looks at her and starts to laugh. She joins in too, laughing until her belly aches, feeling happy and drunk and free for possibly the last time.

"God, you're pretty," he says, after they've stopped laughing, "You know that?"

She faintly smiles, tells him that beauty doesn't make you less dead. He toasts to that, and they drink until they pass out, their fingers touching from reaching for another drink.

/

The night before the Games, he comes into her room, like he has every night since they have had the interviews, and she tells him that she wants him to kiss her.

He waggles his head left to right, a drunken fool splayed on her bedspread, "If I kiss you now, you'll never want to kiss me again."

They both stiffen. He looks interested in a loose string on the bedspread and then slowly lets his eyes creep upward. She is staring directly at him, her lower lip dropped slightly. The silence is deafening, but only lasts a few minutes.

"I'll always want to kiss you," she says steadily; shyly.

He twines his fingers through hers, and smiles sadly at the bedspread, "I know, sweetheart."

She sighs before taking another shot.

/

They secretly take a shot of tequila before they get ready for the Games.

"To you," Haymitch says to her.

Maysilee shakes her head and smiles, "To us."

He doesn't correct her that there is no such thing as an us in the Hunger Games, no such thing as Haymitch and Maysilee. She thinks, maybe, it's because he wishes there was one.

/

They team up together because he wishes there was an us. She is sure of it. There is no other reason he would want to be in an alliance with her.

They kill separately. She doesn't like to see the wild look in his eyes when he takes another life, because it scares her that the same look is in her own. They barely speak about anything in the arena, mostly out of fear they will be overheard. He does not hold her hand, as they had started to do in the past few days before they entered the Games. They are strangers on camera.

But we are an us, Maysilee thinks, we are a we.

/

One night, she brings up the hypothetical. It had been a particularly tense day, in which she was attacked from behind by a tribute from Three. Although she had gotten away, and killed the tribute, her back was wounded. Haymitch treated the cut and as she looked at him, the thought of what-if's rose up her throat like vomit.

"Imagine," she said vaguely, "Imagine if you were in love with me. Imagine we got out of the Hunger Games and we were in love. Imagine if you kissed me every day until our last day, and then you kissed me goodbye for the first time. Imagine that. Wouldn't that be a wonderful life, Haymitch?"

He looked away from her, and in a steely voice, he said, "It can't be our life."

Maysilee angrily pushed his helping hands away, and stood up, wobbling on her feet, "Fuck off, Haymitch. You could let me believe it. Just once, let me believe that someone loves me."

He met her eyes then, and in a completely sober voice, he told her his version of the words she only dreamed he would say.

"I wish we were an us, sweetheart."

She takes his face in her hands, kisses him low and deep and she swears this was written in the stars. His hands roam and she presses herself closer to him, because she has waited for this for so long. His kisses still make her head hazy.

He pulls away when she swears her head will fall off, and leans his forehead against hers, "I'm sorry."

It's unlike him. She kisses him harshly to get him to be himself and he pulls away again.

"May," he calls her, and her whole heart stops.

She looks at him right in the eyes, "We'll never be able to be together, will we?"

He meets her gaze steadily, "No. We won't."

She nods absentmindedly, "I'm going to go."

"Where will you go?"

She laughs bitterly, and then looks at the ground, "I'll be back. I'm dizzy or something. Let me clear my head."

He nods. She knows he wishes he was drunk right now.

She leaves their makeshift campsite and breathes deeply. Inside her head, she is thinking a thousand and two things. She touches the wound on her back softly, and feels a cold ooze of blood on her fingers. She pulls her fingers in front of her face and inspects them.

It only takes moments for the birds to come. They come in a swarm and then they attack, beaks pecking her body, ravaging her clothes, killing her slowly. She never expected death to be like this – so miserable and lonely and _painful_. However, she never really expected death to be a lonely experience. In her wildest dreams, she hoped Haymitch would be there. God, did she want him to be there. If this was one of her wild dreams, he would have kissed her goodbye.

And then, when the birds finally leave her, he emerges from the bushes, and promptly throws up at the sight of her. She's barely alive, and she looks at him and knows that all of the pretending has led to this.

He falls to his knees next to her and touches his fingers to his lips and presses them against her mangled lips. Her head is dizzy for a moment. She smiles and then closes her eyes.

She tastes love on her lips.


End file.
